Dealers down after Canada Post rule enforces lettermail to U.S., abroad

By Jesse Robitaille

Dealers are facing the brunt of the cost with Canada Post enforcing a rule focused on lettermail, specifically pieces of mail with stiff inserts to protect valuable contents such as stamps and coins, mailed to the United States and other international destinations.

While the rule dates back to early 2021, when international postal regulations required Canada Post to provide “electronic advanced data” to the destination customs agency, the Crown corporation failed to elaborate on when
or how it informed its customers, including small businesses such as stamp dealers.

“Letter-post items, including registered mail, being delivered outside of Canada must only contain letters and documents made of paper or similar materials and be of no value,” said Canada Post media relations manager Phil Rogers. “Letter-post items cannot contain goods and merchandise of any kind, such as postage stamps, sports cards and coins.”

The new rule has already hurt the bottom lines of several Canadian dealers, according to Brian Grant Duff, the owner of All Nations Stamp & Coin in Vancouver, B.C., who added the negative effects aren’t limited to the philatelic business.

Last November, he received a piece of mail sent to the United States in a “U.K.-style stiff envelope” returned to him “with no explanation other than a yellow ‘return to sender’ sticker,” Duff told CSN this August.

“I double-checked the address, warned the client it had come back for no apparent reason, repackaged and resent it in a larger stiffened envelope, which got through.”

More recently, another local dealer contacted him about six pieces of mail also sent south of the border but then returned.

“He told me about how the stiffened mail must be sent as tracked parcel scenario. I contacted other leader dealers, only one of whom knew anything about it, and brought it to the attention of the CSDA (Canadian Stamp Dealers Association) at that time,” he said, adding it was in late February.

Duff also contacted several clients who work at postal outlets “for an explanation,” he said.

“Only one of them knew about it but couldn’t really explain it. I was otherwise unaware of any change other than a postal rate increase and a coming parcel rate increase,” Duff added, confirming the other planned parcel rate increase has been postponed.

It wasn’t until early August, when Duff was invited to a barbecue mainly attended by sports card dealers, that he learned the new postal regulation was having a wider impact.

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